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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29551140">Death is but a Number</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyofRaven/pseuds/RubyofRaven'>RubyofRaven</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>These Kids Need Therapy (Drabbles) [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Descendants (Disney Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood, Boarding School, Early Mornings, F/M, Fear, Fear of Death, Funny, Gen, High School, Humor, Late at Night, Mischief, Panic, Panic Attacks, Post-Descendants 3, Secrets, possible murder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:28:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,218</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29551140</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyofRaven/pseuds/RubyofRaven</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s 3:45am something in the morning. The gym doors are ajar.</p><p>Nothing else really registers, and Dude is still oddly quiet and calm, maybe halfway asleep himself, so it’s not until Carlos steps just outside the doorway of the gym, absentmindedly looking inside the room as he starts to pass by, that he realizes something is not quite as it should be.</p><p>The body suddenly dropping to the floor, splatting in front of the young DeVil just inside the doorway, only confirms this.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dude &amp; Carlos de Vil, Gil &amp; Carlos de Vil, Gil &amp; Uma (Disney: Descendants), Harry Hook &amp; Carlos de Vil, Harry Hook &amp; Uma, Harry Hook/Uma, Uma &amp; Carlos de Vil</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>These Kids Need Therapy (Drabbles) [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925335</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Death is but a Number</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I regret nothing.<br/>Sorry Carlos.</p><p>This takes place somewhere in this timeline of drabbles I’ve created. Use your imagination as to when. This is totally fine to be read as a stand alone piece.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dude has to go pee. </p><p>Again.</p><p>At 3:45am. Otherwise known as a godawful time to be doing anything other than sleeping after having stayed up almost two days straight working on a machine Carlos would be presenting at this year's Heros and Heroines Festival at Auradon Prep, which officially starts tomorrow and continues for a solid three days. Of course, this was the time Dude, his faithful dog sidekick, as Jay has taken to referring to him as, decides he has to go to the bathroom. </p><p>No, he can’t wait.</p><p>Yes, he did his business around 10pm yesterday evening. </p><p>No, it wasn’t enough. </p><p>Yes, he needs Carlos to take him outside because he still hasn’t figured out a way to pee in the toilet without making a mess and Dude really can’t be trusted not to wander off aimlessly if left to his own devices and possibly wander into the kitchen or an unattended garbage can.</p><p> (“What? You people throw away perfectly good food!” Dude always argues.)</p><p>So this is how Carlos finds himself trekking out across the dewy lawn of the main building of Auradon Prep, since Dude couldn’t do his business just anywhere. By the end of the whole ordeal, the young DeVil is fading fast. The shock of the cool morning air and wet grass have worn off and he’s stumbling groggily towards the side entrance of the school, hoping the walk through the hallways will be faster and less taxing than the path it took to get outside. </p><p>Dude, thankfully, follows quietly behind him as he enters the building. </p><p>The burst of warm air is the only thing Carlos notices as he comes inside. It’s not even until he’s a quarter of the way down the hall, almost in front of the doors of the gym, that he even begins to notice the noise coming from the gym's interior. He glances over and sees the doors are ajar.</p><p>At 3:45am something in the morning. </p><p>Nothing else really registers, and Dude is still oddly quiet and calm, maybe halfway asleep himself, so it’s not until he steps just outside the doorway of the gym, absentmindedly looking inside the room as he starts to pass by, that he realizes something is not quite as it should be. </p><p>The body suddenly dropping to the floor, splatting in front of the young DeVil just inside the doorway, only confirms this. </p><p>Carlos lets out a cry, falling to the floor. Dude takes up a similar reaction, but, unlike Carlos, he  runs off, leaving his chosen owner behind. </p><p>Later, Carlos will contemplate the meaning of man’s best friend and the betrayal this represents. </p><p>Later, when he learns that his rationalization that Dude could have run off to go get help is wrong, and, instead, what he actually did was run all the way to the dorms and hide under Carlos’ bed like the unhelpful and cowardly best friend he is. All these things will happen later, when the white haired teen isn’t so busy staring at the murder scene in front of him. </p><p><i>Because what else could it be?</i> he thinks as he watches the blood surrounding the victim expand in an ever growing puddle, stopped only by the threshold of the doorway. There’s a definite stomach wound on the body that couldn't have been sustained by the fall. </p><p>It’s hard to tell who the body belongs to <i>-belonged to?-</i> in the dim lighting as blood seems to continue to just keep gushing out of it.</p><p>The sound of footsteps draws Carlo’s attention away from the scene and to a lone figure that saunters out of the darkness of the gym and into the dim lighting of the hallway.</p><p>“Look what we have here,” Harry Hook, seemingly formed from the shadows, greets the white haired teen. “A scared little pup,” he cackles, waving his hook in the air, a hook with a suspiciously wet substance on the end of it-</p><p><i>Shit!</i> Carlos thinks, breaking out into a cold sweat and back peddling on his ass back into the wall opposite the doorway. <i>Shit, shit, shit!</i> The young teen struggles to formulate a plan- Where to run? Where won’t the pirate follow? How to get his overly tired body to get up and move? <i>What to do? Think, Carlos! Think! You’re good at that!</i></p><p>Before Carlos can sink any further into his despair and blind panic, a voice cuts in, clear and exasperated.</p><p>“Harry,” Uma says, suddenly there in the doorway next to her first mate, standing over the <i>dead body.</i></p><p>The scared teen can feel the dread twisting at his stomach, climbing its way up his throat. </p><p><i>Is she there to help Harry off him?</i> Carlos wonders. <i>Leave no witnesses?</i></p><p>“What?” Harry asks, looking at his captain with an air of innocence.</p><p>Carlos can’t believe the casual way that the pirate just- that he just- that someone could just- “Dude!” the white haired teen finds himself nearly screeching in disbelief. “You just killed a man!” And if Carlos’ voice cracked during the last portion of that accusation, well- only his murderers would know, right?</p><p>Harry turns back to the young DeVil, offended. “I did not.”</p><p>“Yeah, sure,” Carlos says, using this opportunity to stall while he gets up from the floor on shaky legs, leaning heavily against the wall. “And I suppose the red stuff on your hook is just ketchup?”</p><p>This appears to give the taller teen pause. The red clad pirate then takes a moment to look over his hook while Uma stands off to the side, crossing her arms with a huff and a roll of her eyes. </p><p>Much to Carlos’ horror, Harry brings his hook up to his mouth and makes a show of licking along the curve of it and down to the tip before smacking his lips together, looking thoughtful </p><p>Carlos has to hold a hand to his mouth to keep himself from doing more than gagging.</p><p>Harry doesn’t register the other boy’s reaction, choosing, instead, to declare, “Cherry flavored.” After another moment of the pirate noticeably swirling his tongue around in his mouth, prompting Carlos to cringe hard and promptly lose the contents of his stomach right there in the hallway, Harry tacks on, “I think.”</p><p>“Harry,” Uma says, once again, exasperated. </p><p>“What? He asked!” her first mate says, gesturing to the retching boy.</p><p>She just shakes her head, massaging her brow in a vain effort to try to stave off the headache forming all because of her lovably, chaotic first mate of a boyfriend. <i>Seriously,</i> she thinks, <i>she can’t take him anywhere.</i></p><p>-----------------------------</p><p>As per usual, it’s up to Uma to do damage control.</p><p>This starts with her tasking Harry to go flag down a member of the overnight janitorial staff to clean up the mess Mal’s white haired lackey just made. It then falls to her and Gil, who comes out from where he’s been helping some of her other crewmates, Desiree and Bonnie, finish hanging up decorations further inside the gymnasium, to convince the poor DeVil boy, who is curled up in a ball on the floor against the wall a bit away from what remains of last night's dinner, that Harry had not, in fact, killed anyone. </p><p>“Harry was just acting like a murderer,” her second mate says, sitting down next to the boy. “He’s actually, like, a really good actor.” Gil smiles broadly at the still shaking DeVil, throwing a comforting arm around his shoulders. “Who knew, right?”</p><p>“But-” DeVil looks perplexed. “Why?”</p><p>Uma rolls her eyes. <i>She’s going to have to explain everything to him, isn’t she?</i></p><p>“Because,” she says, crouching down in front of the white haired teen, “this is me and my crew’s contribution to the Heroes and Heroines Festival.”</p><p>“Killing people?”</p><p>“No!” At Carlos’ violent flinch, she has to force herself to relax and keep her voice calm and even, explaining, “No. It’s this thing called a haunted house. Some Auradonians apparently make them whenever this thing called Halloween comes around.”</p><p>“I know what Halloween is,” the other teen petulantly says.</p><p>“Great. Then you know what a haunted house is?”</p><p>DeVil avoids her gaze, hugging his knees closer to his chest. “No.”</p><p>Uma restrains herself from sighing or rolling her eyes. “Look,” she says, standing up. “This body,” she walks over to the figure still lying in the doorway, “it’s a prop.” She grabs their makeshift mannequin by it’s head and easily lifts it off the ground, showing it’s clearly inhuman appearance in the better lighting of the hallway. “See?”</p><p>The boy still looks queasy, but at least he doesn’t look ready to bolt anymore at the first chance he gets. </p><p>“It’s just a prop,” she continues, “combined with special effects and Harry’s acting. That’s what these haunted houses are apparently all about.”</p><p>“Scaring people out of their mind?” Carlos asks incredulously. No doubt, though the boy had been in Auradon long enough to actually experience Halloween, King Ben only allowed the original VKs the more sanitized experience of the Auradonian holiday filled only with trick or treating and funny costumes. It made Uma want to roll her eyes anew. The mighty King Ben was like an overprotective mother with them all sometimes.</p><p>Uma only found out about haunted houses because, now that they were free of the isle, Harry and, one of her other crewmates, Jonas had made it their new life’s mission to find the most inappropriate and grotesque things Auradon had to offer, and one of those things included horror movies and all things Halloween. They’re just lucky their haunted house idea was useful to her and her ever present need to show Mal up- Mal, who had her own tent set up for her and her artwork practically center stage and promoted as a main attraction for the annual festival. </p><p>“Yup,” the pirate captain says. “And you, DeVil, got to take part in our first run-through.”</p><p>Carlos looks less than pleased by this apparent development.</p><p>“Hey! Congrats, buddy!” Gil tells the smaller teen, clapping him on the back.</p><p>DeVil does an admirable job at not wincing at the blond’s exuberant strength. </p><p>“Okay,” the white haired teen says. “But why doesn’t anyone know about it? This-” he gestures to the gym,  “I mean, even though I’ve been pretty busy these past couple of days, I’m pretty sure I would have heard about what you and all the other pirates were up to. I mean, I know Mal has her art, Evie’s going to try and do a fashion show with Dizzy, Celia has her card reading. Why didn’t I hear about-?”</p><p>“Because Uma wanted it to be a surprise,” Harry says, coming down the hallway with a tired looking janitor in tow. “How else are we supposed to take on ol’ dragon’s breath and prove our worth, right captain?” The grin he sends her way is contagious along with the image of a dismayed purple haired fae his words bring to mind. </p><p>It also brings to mind one of the other reasons they’ve taken to constructing their haunted house under the cover of darkness, with the king’s blessing and sworn secrecy, of course, and that was for the pure and simple fact that it wouldn’t do for the Auradonians to see the fearsome pirates of the isle getting so worked up over such trivial preparations for something as lame as a school festival. </p><p>They had a reputation to uphold, after all.</p><p>“Great,” a clearly uncomfortable Carlos says, standing up, with Gil mimicking the action, while the janitor sets to work cleaning up the hallway. “Back to the competitive thing I see.”</p><p>“Did it ever truly end?” Uma asks, smiling as Harry comes to stand beside her, hook gently caressing some of her braided hair.</p><p>“Yeah, okay,” the young DeVil awkwardly says in the face of the strange couple, one of whom has a bloody corpse prop still dangling from her fingertips. “I’m gonna go.”</p><p>Harry’s eyes flash over the smaller teen’s slowly retreating form, a spark of mischief in them. </p><p>“Toodeloo, pup!” her boyfriend says with a jaunty wave of his hook, which he deftly slides free of her hair with a practiced movement. “Just remember,” he calls after the other teen, “death is but a number.”</p><p>DeVil snorts, turning around to face the pirate. “Uh, pretty sure death is <i>not</i> a number.”</p><p>Harry playfully touches the tip of his hook to his chin, looking for all the world as if he is giving a great deal of thought on the matter. Uma bites her lip to keep from smiling and further encouraging her boyfriend. </p><p>“Isn’t it, though?” Harry asks.</p><p>“<i>No,</i>” the other teen says, “it’s not.” And, with that, DeVil starts to walk away again.</p><p>Of course, Harry can’t just let that be the end of it as he makes the decision to follow along behind the shorter teen.</p><p>“But isn’t it though?”</p><p>“No, it’s not!” Carlos tells him, strides quickening as he rounds the corner of the hallway out of sight of the main gym doors, Harry quick on his heels.</p><p>“But isn’t it?” she hears her first mate prod.</p><p>“No! Quit following me!”</p><p>Uma rolls her eyes, before turning to Gil. “Go grab Harry and drag him back here. We don’t want to wake everyone on campus.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I really just wanted to write a fic where I could even somewhat justify using the “Accidental Murder” tag. Did it work? No? Darn! XD Instead, I got a “Possible Murder” tag. Is that even a tag? Oh well! You clicked on this fic anyway. XD And now Carlos probably needs to see a counselor or a therapist and get a restraining order against Harry-- not that that would stop the pirate… XD Oh well, oh well…</p><p>Also, for anyone who is wondering, such as my awesome editor MMR, the saying of “Death is but a number,” is just one that popped into my head for the title of this fic and then Harry Hook, who has taken up residence in my brain (rent free, I might add), said, “I bet I can annoy a pup with that.” And so he did. And that’s how I came to concluding this fic. :D You’re welcome!</p><p>For anyone who wants to know, I’ve had this idea for months now and I clearly don’t give a fuck about what time of year it is when I post this and things in the future. -Because I got another fun one that fits vaguely for Halloween and I’m gonna post it when I post it. XD So enjoy!</p><p>And- yes, the main idea for this fic originally was just the idea of Carlos being traumatized in this way and Harry not helping anything with that hook of his. The parts with Uma and Gil were very much add ons, but I wouldn’t change them for the world. XD Same with that ending convo between Harry and Carlos.</p><p><i>Heroes and Heroines Festival</i> - This idea is taken from the <i>Wicked World</i> series, a TV show spin-off of <i>Descendants</i>. First few episodes involve Mal and Evie working on their respective contributions to the festival, which is, as far as I can tell, some type of school culture festival. Not much is explained about it except that Mal, apparently, has her own respective art tent/booth in it. So why not let the pirates borrow the gym for their part in the festival?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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